Unchained Melody
by mltrefry
Summary: One Shot, post "The Doctor Dances." After Jack turns in for the night, the Doctor and Rose have one last dance in the console room.


_Disclaimer: Don't own Who._

* * *

It had been a little over an hour since they had Jack first come aboard and the Doctor suddenly remembered how to dance. A little over an hour of moving and dancing around the console like it was the normal thing for them to do aboard the TARDIS. Hand in hand when the moves called for it, spinning and dipping, smiling or laughing, one human face flushed with exercise and a Time Lord denying that maybe his hearts skipped a beat here and there.

Jack had turned in for the night about ten minutes before, having spent that whole time suggesting a song that may stump the Doctor and his dance moves to make way for the Captain to impress Rose. It hadn't worked, not once, not when the knowledge of centuries of Earth dancing had been brought to the forefront of the Doctor's mind. And so, in surrender, he let the pair dance the night away as he went to find a room to crash in.

As the song finally ended, and the Doctor and Rose stopped laughing, she pushed her hair of her face.

"So what shall it be now? What with Jack gone we can choose our own, yeah?"

"Could do," The Doctor said, still lightly keeping his hand in Rose's though he let it hang by his side. "Or we could let the TARDIS pick for us."

"She can do that?" Rose asked, tucking her hair behind her ear, thankful that despite the light layer of sweat on her back from still having worn her jacket that her face hadn't developed a sheen.

"'Course she can," The Doctor scoffed, his eyes smiling.

A moment later, a square dance tune filled the console room, sending them both into a fit of laughter that was so rare for him.

"Think we might need another one there, ol' Girl." Rose said to the Time Rotor.

It changed abruptly, the grip the Doctor had on Rose's hand tightening ever so slightly.

While he glared menacingly at the time ship, Rose smiled and bit her lip. "Always loved this song." She said softly, the Doctor turning his head and looking at her with an indiscernible expression. She smiled at him, biting her lip shyly in a very un-Rose-like way. She met his eyes fleetingly, and went to move away. He reflectively pulled her back, the momentum launching her forward, her hand resting on the curve of his shoulder while he moved their joined hands up by his shoulder, his hand on her waist.

The Doctor waited, holding her gaze and making her feel both small and weightless as he slowly started to move in a circle. Not a waltz, per se, but certainly not the slow dancing of Rose's time either. As they moved, both started to relax, the lyrics of the song playing heavily on Rose's mind with them being both severely accurate in their meaning and so far off when it came to them. But as the words sent Rose back to her childhood, her mother singing it in the kitchen and it being so heavily associated with a movie she and Shareen had seen in the telly a dozen or so times a year, she let go. Because this song, which a part of her still found entirely too romantic, was moving her and the Doctor along and causing them to drift closer.

She wasn't sure when her arm started to bend, or her hand glided around the curve of his shoulder. She couldn't really pin point a time when his hand started sliding around and up her back beneath her jacket, or when their joined hands started to lower to their sides. It was likely around the time they couldn't look each other in the eye anymore, before his nose first brushed against her forehead.

Closing her eyes, feeling his breath against her lashes, Rose brushed her nose along his chin. Their joined hands fell out of formation, slowly shifting from clasping to entangled, fingers falling and sifting together in harmony at their sides.

She risked a peek then, glancing up through her lashes to see the Doctor's eyes hooded but observant before he caressed her cheek with his, his nose unable to resist joining in. His double heart beat, quicker than normal, could be felt against her shoulders where their bodies barely pressed together.

That's when their eyes opened and locked on to one another, ice blue to warm hazel. Without a word, they pressed their foreheads to one another, eyes still meeting without an ounce of waver despite the angle. Rose's hand moved to the back of the Doctor's neck, his cool skin and short hair beneath her fingers. They moved in a full, slow circle before eyes fell, and hers landed directly on his lips. Instinctively, her own lips parted, silently hoping that maybe the day of everyone living and bouts of captain envy would allow the Doctor to do more than just dance.

Something fell. Not a loud bang or a crash. Just something a little hard had hit the grating and caused a slight rustle that pulled the pair promptly away from each other before turning toward the disturbance.

Jack swooped down to pick up his hat. "Sorry, so sorry, didn't mean to interrupt, wasn't going to." He said, looking pale and regretful, eyes darting between the two as if he was worried who was going to kill him first. "Just the room I was led to had stuff in it already, like clothes and toiletries in the bathroom."

"Ah, that's just the TARDIS taking care of ya, Jack," the Doctor said as he moved around the console. He stopped the song, which was essentially over, and then looked up at Jack with a manic grin. "She likes ya, which makes one of us."

"I'm sorry," Jack repeated.

"'S alright," Rose waved it off nervously, wringing her hands as she kept glancing at the Doctor who seemed intensely focused on something on the monitor. "I think I'll turn in myself. Night Jack, Doctor." She said as she moved swiftly for the corridor.

"No nights on the TARDIS, Rose." He called, and she risked a glance over her shoulder to see him smiling at her warmly, his eyes glowing. Not sparkling, Time Lord eyes would never sparkle, but the joy behind them was too much for there to be no sign of light at all. She grinned, tongue between her teeth, before she turned and headed into her room.

Inside she resigned herself to the likelihood that this night was never going to happen again. That any and all opportunities it held had passed, and she and the Doctor would continue being best mates. But oh, oh that dance. For the rest of her life she knew she'd never be able to hear that song again without thinking of the dance and how absolutely perfect it truly was.

* * *

 **A/N:** I know I have my own little Whoniverse thing going on, but this isn't really a part of it. Could be, I guess. It was just a really sweet idea I had pop in my head and decided to write it for the fun of it.


End file.
